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Minipets are joy

I have to admit that my most coveted drop that I want from Magister's Terrace is the phoenix minipet. Minipets are probably the silliest thing in World of Warcraft. A non-combat pet. Window dressing.

For my wife, I think minipets are about 20% of why she plays the entire game. When I passed on the rumor of minipet bags, she was thrilled. She is that person who has 20 minipets, in her inventory. Chickens, robots, elephants, glowing balls of light, bugs, old chewing gum, and a ball of string. I have a mere dozen. Only four on my inventory at a time (less on my bagspace-starved warrior, he only gets three) Our love of minipets is strong, and it turns out that we are not alone.

The best minipets have a noise you hear when you click on it. Like with Willy, you get a groan. Mechanical chicken, you get a robotic clucking noise. And so on. It's something fun you can do if you're on a raid and the raid leader has to explain an encounter you know to the new person.

Come to think of it, the baby panda is partially what sold my wife on the game in the first place. You have these majestic, imposing characters, with huge shoulder armor and glowing effects and fearsome weapons and so on. And then you have a humble prairie chicken pecking the ground next to you. There's something about that pairing that's just perfect. Before we got her a computer of her own (and a game client of her own), my wife and I would play together, with her riding shotgun. We chatted up someone in Ironforge who had a baby panda. "That's so cool!" "Yeah, but he doesn't really do much." And at that moment, the baby panda took a nap, laying down with the green zzz over its head. We laughed for a solid ten minutes. That was the beginning.

Minipets factor into our guild's raid strategy as well. When we encounter difficulty on a new boss, the wipes can get tedious. Someone always suggests different minipets, and everyone in the raid says "Ah yes. Minipets." A different contingent of (useless) minipets will certainly make this attempt much easier. Like I said, we're casual/raiding, and we should probably be talking more about whatever's killing us, but how can you turn down a guaranteed smile and laugh before rushing in to die again?